Once again, even though the reporter did not ask a gay question, Lee Kuan
Yew made reference to it. One cannot help but get the impression that it
is an issue that weighs quite heavily on the government.

The interview I am referring to was the
one he gave to the International Herald Tribune on 24 August 2007 (the
story appeared in the 29 August edition). The newspaper was represented by
Leonard M. Apcar, deputy managing editor, Wayne Arnold, a Singapore
correspondent, and Seth Mydans, Southeast Asia bureau chief.

Excerpt of the transcript from the
website of the Ministry of Information, Communication and the Arts:

Lee Kuan Yew: For the top 20
percent of the population, there are no constraints there. I would say .
. . top 20 percent, the educated population. They're educated abroad, at
university. So, they know the wide world and they are on the Internet
and they've got friends, they e-mail them. They travel. Every year,
about 50 percent of Singaporeans travel by air.

So, this is not a closed society. But
at the same time, we try to maintain a certain balance with the people
who are not finding it so comfortable to suddenly find the world
changed, their world, their sense of place, their sense of position in
society. We call them the heartlanders in the HDB estates [government
housing developments], the people who live in three- and four-room
flats. Three and four rooms are the lowest-end. Five rooms and the
executives are the upper end.

And so we have this dichotomy. You can
read the analysis by our academics who wrote that we are using the
heartlanders to keep progress in check. But they have not governed the
place. (laughs) The academics, they write these things from abstract
analysis. Like gays, we take an ambiguous position. We say, O.K., leave
them alone but let's leave the law as it is for the time being and let's
have no gay parades.

IHT: Don't ask, don't tell?

Lee Kuan Yew: Yes, we've got to
go the way the world is going. China has already allowed and recognized
gays, so have Hong Kong and Taiwan. It's a matter of time. But we have a
part Muslim population, another part conservative older Chinese and
Indians. So, let's go slowly. It's a pragmatic approach to maintain
social cohesion.

Three other things struck me. His awareness that China, Hong Kong and
Taiwan are ahead of Singapore indicates that he has been enquiring about
the issue. To what extent he is absorbing what he's reading, I don't know,
but you see an effort to find out.

The second thing I noticed was the
reference to "for the time being" and "It's a matter of
time." This tells you that the non-repeal of Section 377A, the law
that makes "gross indecency" between males a crime, coupled with
a clear statement that it would not be "pro-actively enforced",
is seen as no more than a way station.

Until when? You might ask. Indeed that is
hard to say. The government may be waiting to see whether this
half-measure will still hurt economically. If it does, in the form of an
unshakeable image of intolerant puritanism, making foreign talent hesitate
before relocating here or Singapore-born talent refusing to return after
studies abroad, then they will move faster.

The third, and most striking thing was
his mention of Muslims and older Chinese and Indians, whom I often call
the "traditional conservatives". Indeed there are many
Singaporeans in these groups who would resist social change, but as most
observers would have noted, the most vocal anti-gay lobbying comes from an
altogether different quarter -- the dogmatic Christians, who tend to be
better educated, more westernised and often, not "heartlanders".

Why did Lee not mention them? In fact,
looking back, I don't think he has ever mentioned them. By now, I do not
believe he doesn't know about their lobbying, since he has obviously spent
time reviewing the subject.

There are 2 possibilities that I can
think of:

1. He doesn't want to legitimise their
opposition. He knows it is religiously based and that if he recognises
their argumentation as a factor then he opens a Pandora's box for
Singapore.

2. He has come to the conclusion that
numbers-wise, they aren't important; actually, it is quite obvious, when
compared to traditional conservatives.

* * * * *

Meanwhile, the dogmatists try
ever harder. Listen to this recording of Derek Hong from the Church of Our
Saviour. It's so over-the-top, it's hard for any thinking person to take
him seriously.

He casts the struggle for gay equality as a selfish attempt to
gain "special rights". He says Christians must "rise
up" to fight the culture war, and that gays are acting on behalf of
Satan. There's also an incredible amount of
disinformation -- about how gays are scheming to eradicate Christianity,
for example.

The person who sent the recording to me
asked me to write about it, but frankly, there is no need to say much
more. It speaks for itself.

In the middle part of Derek Hong's rant,
he accuses gay people of wanting to "eradicate all self-help
groups.... that seek to help homosexuals recover."

Now these are the notorious ex-gay
programs that claim to "treat" homosexuality. Yet, over the
years, there's been a steady stream of ex-gay leaders found to be lurking
around still seeking homosexual sex. So much for being "cured". In 2003, I wrote about Michael
Johnston and John Paulk in Ex-gay ministries and the cures that don't work.

That article
also tells of others who have come to their senses and spoken out against
the ex-gay deception. In fact, the same month that Hong was speaking, five
ex-gay leaders in Australia publicly condemned such groups.

Five former leaders of ex-gay ministries
in Australia have publicly condemned the practice of teaching homosexuals
to be heterosexual. Reparative/conversion therapies, which seek to alter a
personís sexual orientation through disciplinary programs, have been
dealt a blow in recent times as an increasing number of former leaders
acknowledge that the practice does not work.

The apologies of three former ex-gay
leaders at the Ex-gay Survivors Conference in Los Angeles in June
encouraged a number of former Australian leaders to speak up.

Paul Martin was the former leader of
Exodus in Melbourne, a ministry that "helped" men and women
"find a way out of homosexuality".

There was not one person that I met or
worked with who, in any genuine way, achieved the fundamental
transformation from homosexual to heterosexual," Martin said.

The stress of attempting to change their
sexual orientation, however, increased the risk of suicide, and absolutely
led to erosion of self-esteem and increased levels of depression and
self-deprecation at a very deep level."

[snip]

Some people have suicided," he said.
"But most people have now come to terms with their sexuality.

There is no success rate. The only
success rate the programs have is a degree of heterosexual functionality,
which is not a change of sexual orientation."

A number of Australian ministries still
conduct conversion therapies today, including Living Waters and Liberty
Christian Ministries.

In a way, I am glad Lee Kuan Yew makes no reference to such dogmatists
from the Christian rightwing. They are nutcases, and a liability to
Singapore.

And of course, we have the case
of US Senator Larry Craig from Idaho. This silver-haired
62-year-old was caught propositioning in a men's toilet at
Minneapolis - St Paul airport. While inside a toilet stall, he
allegedly tapped his foot and made hand signals under the
partition to the undercover police officer Dave Karsnia in the
adjoining stall.

He pleaded guilty and was fined
US$575 on 11 June 2007.

There have been rumours of
Craig's homosexual tendencies since the 1980s, but he has always
denied them, as he continues to say, even after pleading guilty,
"I am not gay. I have never been gay."

I, for one, am glad that he said
that. I wouldn't want to be associated with him in any way. He
may have homosexual urges, but a gay person is someone who
recognises his own self and sexual orientation, not someone who
goes around in denial. A gay person has self-respect.

Craig, a Republican, has a Senate
voting record against equal rights for gay people, and he
supported a 2006 amendment to the Idaho constitution barring gay
marriage and civil unions. Yet it wasn't incongruous to him to
look for sex in men's toilets.